Gardeners in the BC Lower Mainland area can visit the home of Heritage Perennials® during our annual PUBLIC OPEN HOUSE. Our 25 acre nursery in Abbotsford, BC will be open to the public for tours, Master Gardener consultations, plant sales (including a GREAT bargain area), seminars and more. Food and refreshments are available. Join us on Friday, September 9th, 2005 from 9am to 3pm at 1831 Peardonville Road in Abbotsford. Click here for directions and more details.
UPDATE! Our Abbotsford nursery will also be open on Saturday, Sept. 10 from 9 am to 12 noon for DISCOUNT PLANT SALES ONLY. Great news for those of you who can't attend on the Friday!

The Valleybrook Gardens Ontario GIANT PERENNIAL PLANT SALE will be taking place on Saturday, September 10, 2005 from 9am to 4pm. The sale is at our ONTARIO nursery, located near Niagara-on-the-Lake at 961 Line Four Road. Please click here for directions and more information. There will be BARGAINS GALORE!! We suggest you bring your own cart if possible, and a supply of labels could also come in handy. Master Gardeners of Niagara will be on hand to assist and to answer gardening questions.

Indeed, getting off the plane back home and returning to a humid oven, I had to wonder if there could be any place better to garden than the prairies? Despite all the things you can't grow in Zone 2, the things you can grow well are just so spectacular. See — every climate has its advantages!

Speaking of beautiful gardens, Brenda Senft sent in some great pictures of the Tugboat Junction Adventure Park at Harrison Hot Spring, BC, where she gardens. I'll post them to our Picture Perfect Perennial Gallery shortly, but you can see one lovely shot just above.

We have three winners this month, and each will receive a copy of our Perennial Gardening Guide. Here are their entries:

WINNER: Doris — Calgary, Alberta
"My husband and I went on a six-week road trip from Calgary to Newfoundland and back, leaving the garden in the care of my sister and brother-in-law. Their duties included only watering, and pulling out obvious weeds before they went to seed. Earlier that spring, I had bought a container of Calamagrostis 'Overdam' for $8.00, and planted it carefully and nursed it lovingly until the day of my departure.
When we returned from our vacation, I surveyed my property, briefly missing the flowers that bloomed in our absence and rejoicing over the survival of most of my plants. The one and only casualty? My precious 'Overdam'. My brother-in-law, always an eager weeder, had mistaken the baby grass (label and all!!) for quack grass or turf that had invaded the flower bed. He was quite proud of how "clean" he had kept my garden and, to this day, he doesn't know that one of the "weeds" he diligently removed for me was a plant I had obsessively tracked down just weeks before."

WINNER: Caroline — Vancouver, British Columbia
"Several summers ago my husband and I took our two youngest children away on a three week vacation, leaving our 19-year-old son at home. Along with feeding the cats and dog, his job was to water my hanging baskets and pots. I left sprinklers in place, set with timers to go on in the wee hours of the morning, knowing it would be easier to water the lawn and garden in this manner than rely on my son to remember to turn it on every few days.
It turned out that when I set up the sprinkler and timer, the washing machine was running and the water pressure was low for the sprinkler. When it came time for the sprinkler to come on while we were away, there was — of course — no laundry being done. The spray did an excellent job of watering the lawn and beds, as well as the living room windows and front door of our 65-year-old house. Needless to say, after three weeks of this nightly 'downpour', we arrived home to windows and doors that were so badly warped we couldn't easily open them for months. Live and learn."

The plant that now scares me is a pretty one indeed, and one that I often see in gardens called Giant Himalayan Balsam or Impatiens glandulifera (also sometimes called Policeman's Helmet or Ornamental Jewelweed). Seeds and plants are seldom offered for sale. No, this is one most often passed along from neighbor to neighbor, and it's been around in North American gardens for quite awhile.

What is so scary about this plant is its potential for completely destroying streamside and wetland habitats once it escapes, particularly salmon-spawning streams in the Pacific Northwest. Native to a very small area in the Himalayas (where presumably there are natural predators to keep it in check) it is already naturalized in 18 European countries, in areas of Washington State, British Columbia and the eastern shores of Lake Ontario.

This is a fast-growing annual that germinates in cold soil during the spring. It grows a leafy canopy quickly, shading out any native vegetation below, and just keeps getting bigger and bigger, reaching heights of 6 to 10 feet at flowering time in high summer. In the autumn, the seed capsules ripen and then explode, scattering seed in every direction and for quite a distance. One plant will produce up to 2500 seeds before it dies in the winter. The seeds also float, so when growing beside moving water new patches will form downstream the next season.

Some biologists and environmentalists feel the potential impact of this plant is very serious, beyond even the havoc created by Purple Loosestrife. Having seen how this plant spreads just in home garden situations, I tend to agree. However, it could be years before government agencies jump on board and declare this plant a noxious weed — something generally done far too late in the process.

I promised Karen I would help spread the word, and if some of you would also do this with your local horticultural societies, etc. that would be just terrific. For more information on Giant Himalayan Balsam, check out Himalayan Balsam on the Invasive Plants of Southwestern B.C. website. Good photos can also be found at www.brickfieldspark.org.

QUESTION: "My perennial bed is about 8 ft deep and 80 ft long. I have too many bearded irises (about 16 colours in this bed) which means that I can't seem to keep a colourful bed all summer because the irises take up too much space. I love my irises, but can you suggest how to work around them and keep the garden pretty all season?" Vivien — Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario

ANSWER: Absolutely! Next time your iris clumps need renovation/dividing, consider giving them a rear position instead of at the middle or front of the bed. Bearded Iris have a way of looking really boring or downright ugly by midsummer, yet at blooming time in late spring/early summer they're one of the taller things and easily visible even when growing further back in a bed. In that position, once the irises get hideous, other things grow up around them to disguise this problem. This trick also works well with Oriental poppies and taller spring bulbs!

If your garden lacks interest later in the season, try planning for extra colour from July onwards. Our Advanced Search feature is a great tool for finding specific perennials for any particular part of the season. Consider things like Rudbeckia, Echinacea, Russian Sage (Perovskia), daylilies (hundreds of great ones!), Coreopsis, and perennial Hibiscus for starters. One really easy way to get summer and fall colour is to just keep going to the garden centre every 3 weeks or so and buying a new perennial in bloom. I'm not the type to plan gardens well on paper, so giving into my impulse shopping habit — but stretching it out over the summer and fall — is much more practical.

Club Members recently received the first issue of our brand new second newsletter, The New Perennial Insider, and feedback was excellent!

So... the contest topic for August is: which perennials in your garden do Japanese beetles attack, and which do they leave alone? By all means include annuals and flowering shrubs, etc. if you have loads of experience with these annoying pests. This month we will draw for three winners. Each will receive a signed copy of the Perennial Gardening Guide. Winners will be announced in the September, 2005 newsletter and we will build a nice list of plants to grow and ones to avoid. Once we've got a good list built I can see about adding this as a new searchable feature on our website database.

Our best-selling book, the Perennial Gardening Guide (4th edition, March 2003) is a handy reference used by gardeners across North America — written by John Valleau, horticulturist for Heritage Perennials®. Available at your local Heritage Perennials® Dealer.